Cecilia Trasi works at Bruegel as an Power and Local weather Analysis Analyst. Previous to becoming a member of Bruegel, she held positions on the European Fee and the OECD. She holds a BSc in Economics at Università Cattolica in Milan and a Grasp’s in Public Coverage on the Hertie Faculty in Berlin.
With COP30 in Belém on the horizon, world local weather diplomacy is drifting. The final local weather convention confirmed that supply of local weather commitments is lagging simply as ambition should rise.
To date, 173 international locations – together with China, India and the EU – have but to submit their up to date Nationally Decided Contributions (NDCs) with pledges for 2035. America, for its half, has once more pulled out of the Paris Settlement, slashed worldwide local weather finance and embraced a “fossil gas first” agenda.
On this fragmented panorama, China stands out. It dominates clear know-how provide chains, is scaling up renewables at house, and it’s a pressure in local weather diplomacy and finance to international locations within the World South. However this isn’t multilateral management within the conventional sense. China’s local weather engagement is strategic, domestically rooted, and tightly woven into its industrial and geopolitical ambitions.
On the identical time, the just lately enacted Power Legislation explicitly recognises coal as a “fundamental safeguard and system regulator” within the nationwide power system. Coal nonetheless dominates its gas combine, accounting for greater than 70% of the general gas combustion CO2 emissions, over half of which comes from its energy sector.
This twin trajectory of increasing each renewables and coal will not be an accident of coverage: It’s the coverage. And it displays a basic calculus: Local weather coverage in China should be per home financial and political stability. Beijing expands inexperienced industries for competitiveness, scales fossil fuels for stability, and makes use of local weather cooperation selectively to form its exterior relationships.
Local weather coverage in China is about home continuity first – and the exterior message is evident: It’s going to decarbonise at its personal tempo, by itself phrases. On this context, the July 2025 EU–China Excessive-Degree Dialogue provided little in substance – however essential alerts nonetheless.
At a time of rising EU-China financial stress and sharp divergence in commerce coverage, either side reaffirmed the worth of structured local weather engagement and the necessity to increase ambition forward of COP30. Vice Premier Ding reiterated China’s intention to submit a complete NDC this fall, whereas EVP Ribera referred to as for pressing progress from either side.
This mutual recognition underscores that local weather diplomacy stays one of many areas the place dialogue is functioning: to not affirm shared values, however to form outcomes the place pursuits align. As an alternative of hoping for breakthroughs, the EU ought to goal cooperation in areas the place concrete progress is feasible: carbon markets, methane discount, and adaptation finance.
Continued technical dialogue on China’s emissions buying and selling system might improve monitoring and verification, whereas laying groundwork for future interoperability. Methane mitigation (particularly in coal and agriculture) provides fast, low-cost cuts, even with out China becoming a member of the World Methane Pledge.
However, above all, adaptation provides a much less politicised and extra promising path ahead. China has referred to as for joint help to growing international locations of their inexperienced transitions. Whereas the motivations are strategic, the chance is actual.
Each side are ramping up investments in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. Aligning efforts, even loosely, on resilience infrastructure, early warning methods, and local weather threat planning would permit the EU and China to ship significant outcomes with out requiring normative convergence. Structured coordination by platforms just like the Excessive-Degree Dialogue may help guarantee initiatives reinforce quite than duplicate one another.
Nonetheless, the EU should stay clear-eyed. Brussels has urged China to decide to a declining emissions pathway by 2035. However with out but a goal of its personal, and with persistent tensions over commerce devices like CBAM, the bloc’s leverage is restricted.
As an alternative of counting on ethical authority, the EU ought to work by coalitions – with weak states, rising economies, and finance establishments. By elevating the diplomatic price of inaction whereas providing off-ramps for cooperation, the EU may help bend world ambition upwards.
Europe should interact with this actuality, with none illusions. Structured dialogue with China is not going to erase tensions and it’s not about shared rules. However it will possibly affect decisions on the margins. And within the battle in opposition to local weather change, margins matter.
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